Is Racism Hurting Your Health?

How does our race or ethnicity affect our access to healthcare? Around the world, it is a known fact that non-dominant racial groups tend to have worse health than dominant racial groups. According to Harvard Sociologist David Williams , racial minorities tend to get sick younger, have worse illnesses, and die sooner.

One thing that affects health is people living in separate areas based on race or ethnicity. Residential segregation (the physical separation of social groups into neighborhoods separate from other groups) leads to:
• Differences in the quality of education and employment opportunities
• Creation of neighborhoods with harmful social environments and worse housing conditions
• Less healthy practices such as tobacco use and the encouragement of unhealthy ones as is often seen in diet
• Lower quality healthcare leading to increased deaths and higher costs overall